News-Letter

The number of groups registered with the Student Activities Commission has significantly increased this year, according to SAC chair junior Preeti Balakrishnan.

Because the same amount of money has been allocated to the SAC for the past two years, the upswing has led to a decrease in the overall amount of funding each group receives throughout the year.

This news came as the SAC approved its budget for the 2006 fiscal year Monday night.

The increased number of student organizations, though effectively tightening the SAC budget, is a positive sign, Balakrishnan said.

"This shows that there is an increased level of activity among the Hopkins undergraduate population. New groups have organized themselves and want to demonstrate their interests. Hopefully it will contribute well to student life on campus," she said.

Groups under the authority of the SAC fall into one of several categories, which determines the amount of funding they receive. The respective categories also determine the time frame over which groups receive their funding -- either annually or as needed.

The tightened budget has affected all groups within the SAC, excluding those in Class C, which are linked to the Student Council. These groups -- including the four grade levels, the Board of Elections, the Hopkins Organization for Programming and the MSE Symposium -- receive a sum of money set each year by the University.

StuCo Executive President Iverson Long said, "I think it's great to have so many new groups if they are sustainable. My main concern is that, even though we want students to set up new organizations, those groups need to be committed to their charge. Fortunately, we've seen this so far from our new groups."

"A lot of groups are not going to be happy with the funding they get, but we work well with what we have," Balakrishnan said.

She added, "As much as I would like to give all these groups all the money they want, if we were to do that, it would require twice as much money as we currently have. So we have to draw the line somewhere. There will always be a need for additional fundraising and resourcefulness."

Long said, "We could obviously always use more money, but we know that we get a lot in comparison to other schools. This time around we've given a lot of information to groups about alternative methods of funding so they can do more."

According to Balakrishnan, when student groups request money, the funding allocated by the SAC is only limited by restrictions on what the organization can and cannot fund.

If a group composes a poor proposal but asks for only fundable expenditures, they will receive more of what they ask for than a group with a well-organized proposal that asks for non-fundable materials.

"I don't anticipate any financial problems in the future," Balakrishnan said. "We were hoping for an increase this year, but it didn't happen. I don't think we need one though, because the purpose of the SAC is to make sure groups can function, based on what we can fund."

She added, "Next year's board is made up of dedicated people, and many of them were on the board this year; the transition should be very smooth."

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